The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
In a wireless local area network (WLAN), one or more client stations may compete for access to the WLAN via an access point (AP). The AP selectively grants access to the client stations based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, respective access priorities of the client stations. For example, the AP selectively grants access to a first client station prior to granting access to a second client station if the first client station has a higher access priority than the second client station.
For example, the first client station may have limited available power as compared to the second client station (e.g., the first client station may rely on battery power while the second client station has access to a wired power source). Alternatively, the first client station and the second client station may each rely on battery power, but the battery of the first client station may have a smaller capacity than a battery of the second client station, or a remaining capacity of the first client station may be significantly less than a remaining capacity of the second client station. Accordingly, the first client station may request (and/or the AP may assign) a higher access priority for the first client station.